Time After Time
by theaddisoneffect
Summary: Set during the happier part of Addison and Derek's marriage. Just a little bit of fluff, fun, and...other notable activities :) Derek returns home to a pitch black, silent abode, having just realized he'd completely blown off the date Addison had planned for the evening. Ah, but the night is still young...


_Sigh._ As Derek Shepherd scrubs out of an impeccably performed lumbar laminectomy (albeit a slight slowdown in removing the lamina), he can't help but already picture the discontented look that will surely have surfaced by now on his loving- though noticeably passive aggressive, and occasionally grudge holding...well, never mind that for now, he's digressing- wife's face, so he makes sure to add a little spring in his step as he floats through the halls of surgical floor. Smiling at the image of Addison Shepherd hastily twirling strand after irresistable strand of vibrant red hair with plenty of adorable _huffs_ and _puffs_ to compliment the deliberate action, he knows that she'll give in just as soon as he can get his hands on her s-

"SHEPHERD!" a booming voice interrupts. Turning to place the owner of those powerful lungs with a face, his eyes come to meet the... _oh._ The new chief of staff? Well, crap. What could he have done in the two-or was it three- days Dr. Albman had assumed this position at New York Central? As he ponders over the feasible scenarios in which he _possibly_ could have pissed off the no-nonsense chief, the get 'er done Alabama native man himself takes another few steps towards Derek until they are standing with just over a foot of empty white linoleum between them. Bracing himself for the unpleasantly unknown, Derek draws in his breath, prepared for a lecture on who knows what, when a hearty, almost _giddy_ laugh escapes the physician. "WHAT A SURGERY! I MEAN, _WHAT_ A SURGERY! BY GOLLY, I'VE NEVER HAD THE PLEASURE OF SEEING A MORE ELEGANT SURGEON OPERATE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, AND SON, AS YOU CAN PROBABLY TELL, I'VE BEEN HERE A LONG TIME!", he screams ecstatically into the once silent space. Careful to hide his wincing at the thick globs of spit that had escaped the chief's mouth and found their way onto Derek's scrubs as he'd spoken (or rather, yelled), Derek smiles warmly at the praise.

"Dr. Albman, thank you! Now here you had me worried I'd done something wrong!"

"HA! SOMETHING WRONG?! YOU ARE A FUNNY MAN, SHEPHERD!"

And apparently Derek is funnier than he thought because Dr. Albman begins to physically shake as he bursts into fit after fit of uncontrollable laughter, nearly doubling over every time the chief catches his breath to look at him- who'd have guessed the guy could get so slap-happy? Now if he only he get _Addison_ to find everything he said to be that funny...then, maybe he wouldn't have been exiled to the couch last Wednesday night for comparing her most recent ungodly extravagant high heeled shoe purchase to a pair of garden gnomes; in his defense, the color schemes _were_ pretty similar. As he brings his attention back to Albman, who has now turned red in the face from the never ending supply of mildly amusing sound effects, the loudly spoken man appears to take a 360 degree switch in moods.

"All laughter aside, Shepherd, note that I stand corrected- I _have_ seen a far more elegant surgeon...your wife! The way she separated those fetal blood cells like they were...like they were bits of PUDDIN'! My, oh my, is she a sight to watch! But you're not half bad, either, I guess..." _Another sigh..._

High on adrenaline as he always is receding a successful surgery, Derek promptly makes his way to the locker rooms to store his scrubs and cap for the night, or however long it will end up being… Pulling out the day's, which has now turned into _evening's_ clothes, he changes and retrieves the glistening new Blackberry Addison had insisted that he needed. In fact, Derek had narrowly avoided a black eye last week when he'd turned around only to find a projectile white box hurling in his direction. "WHAT THE-?" he'd started to yell, but then stopped after hearing a suppressed giggle that could only have come from the-

"I've been waiting two hours for you to come home in this closet, I almost lost all circulation in my feet!" she'd squealed enthusiastically.

"Well did it ever occur to you that, one, you could have just sat on the couch like a _normal_ person until you heard my car come in the driveway? Two, taking the daggers off your _feet_ would have been about TWO seconds of your _grand_ plan, and three, PHONES ARE BREAKABLE! Not to mention the fact that you almost decapitated me a second ago!" _Man, for being a double board certified neonatal whatever, she doesn't always think things through very well. Which is why we balance each other out,_ he'd concluded.

"Oh, Derek, don't you think that's a little dramat-"

"Coming from the biggest drama queen I know? You have no room to talk!" He'd smiled, not being able to stay mad at Addison for long after...ok, not _actually_ trying to decapitate him, but nevertheless tossing an exorbitantly expensive phone at his head. _But isn't that kind of the same thing?_ _Oh well,_ he'd thought, _I'll just take one for the tea-_

"HOLY MOTHER OF-!" Before he could finish his thought, he nearly plunges into the nearby coffee table after an unexpected source of weight finds its- or, rather, _her-_ way onto his back.

" _JESUS,_ Addison, are you _TRYING_ to kill me today? You nearly crushed me! Addie, you need to THINK about things before you just-"

"Aww, honey, is that a fat joke?" she'd purred. _Oh, for the love of...never mind._

"Of course not, Addison. You really are too much," he says, shaking his head, but still unable to keep the beam from his face.

"I thought you said it _wasn't_ a fat joke?" she counters.

 _What on earth could she possibly be talking about now? Oh…"too much"._ Did she have to take everything so literally?

"Come on, you know what I mean, sweetheart."

"Do, I? Do I _really?"_

 _Of ALL the difficult women in this planet, she's definitely pushing to prevail at the top of that surprisingly alarming number._ Ah, but he loves this side of her. And every side of her, for that matter. Well, maybe not the side that nonchalantly plunges objects at his brain, which, for the record, _he_ wouldn't be able to operate on, but...he's getting ahead of himself. At this point, Addison had risen from the floor and promptly placed a hand on her hip staring down at him, as he'd seen her do a million times. With _and_ without clothing, might he add. Which gives him an idea…


End file.
